5/26/09

I am rather annoyed with Shichi right about now. Let’s just say I had an eventful day hooning with her yesterday. I'll get to that in a minute though. Saturday morning I meet John at the shop. I had already welded the reducer to the Supertrapp in preparation for building the new zorst when he arrived. I'm not sure if I was irked about something at that point but I know he was. Oh yeah, right before he arrived, the maintenance dude from the facility showed up and wanted to have us clear a place by the middle roll-up door so he could finally fix the thing. It has been near the point of falling off the wall since I moved in but they are now ready to fix it. So, I was not quite irked but slightly put-out. John, being irked by something, seemed to me to be going out of his way to avoid us picking up the junk in the way. Junk, I might add, which really needed to be picked up irregardless of the door fix. Did I spell that non-existent word right? Anyhoo, we finally finish butting heads over it and pick up the junk. I ask if he's going to work on his car and this is when I'm told what’s irking him, which really isn't any of your business, and am further told he won’t be working on his car. We get to work on Shichi’s zorst. We remove the old muffler and I test fit the Supertrapp. I decide that the existing hanger will wind up making the system look like total ass so we make it a shorty system. I try to cut the reducer so it will mate up with the 2” pipe but screw the pooch in a spectacular fashion. I find a section of 2” slip-fit pipe, ironically in the junk we cleaned up to make room for the door repair, and zook it into the gazinta of the muffler. We align the muffler and remove the system from the manifold. I make a feeble attempt to zook on a pair of galvanized pipe lugs so that the muffler will be removable. This also fails miserably. It pisses me off to the point where I cut off the lugs on the front pipe and just zook the two together. John tapes off the stainless part we want to keep shiny and paints the rest of the zorst. We reinstall it and fire the car for a listen. It is loud but we’re inside the paint booth so there’s really no way to know how it is going to work. It sounds pretty good though. I remove the hanger and we have a look at what it is going to need in order to move forward about a foot. It needs a bend upwards. We pie-cut the tube and I zook it back together. I lay down for a test fit and notice that we bent it too much. We pie cut it again, this time on the other side, and I zook it up. Now it fits. We make a plate with two bolts sticking down and drill the floor. John paints everything and then we install it all. We have to fiddle with the connection at the manifold but we finally get it all lined up. It looks good too. I don’t think we did anything else and called it a day with that. I called Dick Brink to see about getting another bonnet from him but he was headed to the airport. We agreed that I'd call back in an hour. I went home and took a nap. When I did call Dick back, he informed me that he apparently didn’t have any used bonnets. He was placing an order to South Africa today and could get me a new one though. I told him to hold off since I didn’t really need one that bad and besides I didn’t want to pay $350.00+ for one right now. Sunday I met my brother-in-law, his daughter, and her boyfriend at the gun show. We walked the thing and called it a success at around 1130 h. I texted Roger to see if he wanted to go shoosting but then headed towards the church/home to meet mom for lunch. Just before I committed to anything, Roger called to say he was on his way to the Shooster’s Club on 28^th Street. I rolled that direction. I got there and signed in. He arrived and started looking at guns. He’s shopping for one and wanted to test fire some of theirs. We got our lanes eventually and went in to shoot. I ran a few rounds through the Judge and then moved on to the Hebrew Hammer. That thing is really accurate! The Judge, not so much, but it is adequate. I mean, it’ll put big-assed holes in anyone I'm looking to stop assaulting me, but I'm not going to be making any long-distance shots with it. When we’d shot all we were going to shoot, we left. We went to Dairy Queen for ice cream and then to Blood Bath & Beyond. I replaced the .45 ACP ammo I shot and bought twenty rounds of .45 Colt Werewolf ammo. I went home and had dinner with mom at Genghis Grille. Is it “grill” or “grille?” Anyhoo, that was the weekend. Monday was when Shichi annoyed me. I was going to save that story for tomorrow but y'all aren’t getting a rant tomorrow what with it being Wednesday already. Oh, you might not get much Thursday either as I have a doctor’s appointment and will be skipping out of work around 1300 h for that. Ok, so Monday morning I load up all of my handguns into the trunk of Ms. Clio and head to the shop. I'm going to clean the Hebrew Hammer, the Judge, and Big Millie and probably give Slick Willie to Courtney Cox, my brother-in-law’s daughter. Oh, didn’t I mention that it was Courtney Cox I went to the gun show with on Saturday? Well, it was. Not THE Courtney Cox, but a Courtney Cox. Anyhoo, I proceed to clean the three guns and stuff then decide to take Shichi out for a hoon. I put Slick Willie in the boot since I might head all the way to Granbury to see my sister and would hand the gun over then. I pull the car out and get ready to go. Everything seems fine so I lock up and head out. The muffler sounds good and isn't too loud. I roll south. At some point between the shop and Cresson, I shift into third and the horn sounds. It startles the hell out of me but quits when I shift to fourth. I drop it to third again but no horn sounds. I fiddle with the wires a bit and keep going. Well, just as I'm turning onto 377 in Cresson and shift into third again, the horn goes off and keeps honking until the fuse blows. I pull over and have a sniff. Nothing seems to be on fire so I roll on to the Ranch. I talk to Ray for a moment and disconnect the ground from the horn compressor. He’s about to head out to Watkins Glen so I wish him a happy Memorial Day and head out. I call my sister but get her voice mail. I decide to take Shichi back to the shop. Of course, like a dumbass I take the really long way out 171 to Bear Creek and back FM5. About halfway down 171 I notice the muffler bobbing about. Yep, the hose clamp had slid off and the thing was springing around on the pipe. I should have stopped right then and reset the clamp but didn’t remember that I had a screwdriver until later. I kept going. As I was turning onto FM5 the throttle began to stick a little. I had to pull it back to idle with my toe. I finally remembered the screwdriver and stopped to fix the muffler and look at the throttle. Of course I burned my thumb fixing the muffler and noticed the little dings and pits and scratches that the flolloping clamp had imparted to the muffler. Yay! I couldn’t see anything wrong with the throttle so I headed on. The sticking got worse and worse. Eventually the thing was “idling” at 4,500 rpm by the time I got to the light at 377 and 1187. I was pissed off by this time. I limped it on back to the shop and parked it. I had a look and found that a screw in the pedal box had come loose and, at first, held the throttle wherever I had my foot but would allow it to return to idle. Once it pissed me off to the point where I stomped it to the floor to try and “break it loose” it prevented the pedal from coming back anymore, hence the 4,500 rpm idle. I tightened the screw and the throttle seems to be fine now. Of course I still have to finger out the horn issue and secure the hose clamp on the muffler better. I guess we have projects for Wednesday and Saturday now. Joy. Once I had Shichi parked, I noticed I'd missed a phone call. It was my sister. I called her back. I was ready to blow off going down there, being all pissed off not to mention hot and sweaty, but found out Courtney was still there. I decided to go ahead and take the gun to her. I hopped in Ms. Clio and headed that way. I gave Courtney the gun and hung out with my sister for a while. Eventually I went back home and then mom and I went to Rockfish for dinner. Now I'm back at work dreading this long-assed short week. Four-day work weeks with Monday off always seem to take forever. I'm not sure why that is. Well, that’s all I've got for today. So there.